


Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

by bocje_ce_ustu



Series: Spizzichi e Bocconi (Tumblr Writing, Fills and Flashfics) [3]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Based on a Tumblr Post, Begins in Medias Res, Charles Always Says the Absolute Worst Thing He Could Possibly Say, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Ends in Medias Res, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, Erik is the Runaway Bride, Erik's Turn On Is Scarring Students For Life, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, I Just Wanted Some Pillow Talk Alright, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, This was supposed to be crack, Triwizard Tournament, Tumblr writing, X-Men: Apocalypse (2016, X-Men: Days of Future Past References, X-Men: First Class (2011), sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7527787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/pseuds/bocje_ce_ustu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been twenty years since the last Tournament, the notorious Triwizard of 1792, when a cockatrice attacked both  Champions and Heads marking the end of such a tradition. Now Hogwarts Headmaster Xavier intends to revive it for reasons that to Durmstrang Headmaster Lehnsherr may not seem as sound as Xavier claims.</p>
<p>Or: Charles plans. Erik objects. Jean knows.</p>
<p>Inspired by <a href="http://tobehunted.tumblr.com/post/147059736059/cherik-aus-i-will-never-write-5-19th-century">this photoset</a> by <a href="http://tobehunted.tumblr.com">tobehunted</a>.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

**Author's Note:**

> You can find this fic also on Tumblr [here](http://bocje-ce-ustu.tumblr.com/post/147601347072/tobehunted-cherik-aus-i-will-never).
> 
> At first I was going to write some Grindelwald/Dumbledore-ish dynamics, but then I fell out of love with the idea, so you get this instead. Hope you enjoy!

 

“If you would be so kind as to _stop that_.”

Erik re-emerges from between his legs, lips swollen, cheeks flushed and the most convincing expression of utter bewilderment he can muster. The cheeky bastard.

“I thought you liked that, Professor Xavier. Or is it Headmaster Xavier now?”

This is probably the point where he would roll his eyes, if Erik hadn’t already made an helplessly writhing wreck out of him. How Erik even manages to conduct an assault on both his body and mind with the same amount of sharp, relentless focus is beyond him. Charles has to constantly remind himself this is a matter of principle and he simply can’t let Erik have it his way, no sir. Charles is the one who taught him the basics of Legilimency, for Merlin’s sake.

“You perfectly know what I mean, Headmaster Lehnsherr.” He rolls his hips forward and hooks his heels on Erik’s shoulders. “If you think you’ll walk out of here with some insight on the tasks, I’ll have you know you’re not getting any.”

Erik actually _pouts_ , eyeing Charles’s crotch suggestively. “You wound me.”

“I mean it, Erik.”

Erik shrugs Charles’s feet down to crawl his way above Charles’s body on the bed, and Charles has one moment to mourn the abrupt end of his lover’s ministrations before fingers take over from where lips and tongue have left. He arches in the sensation and then remembers he has walls to put up.

“Perhaps you could explain to me,” Erik is saying, sounding partly annoyed and partly amused. “Why everyone else seems to be in on the nitty-gritty already and I have to wait for the council meeting for an inkling.”

Right now, Charles is just annoyed – and aroused, alright, but arousal is a constant when Erik is involved. Annoyed at Erik for having barely acknowledged him throughout the day and for showing up at his door at this ungodly hour of the night, for frustrating Charles’s pale attempts at constructive conversation with a single touch, for coming and going from Charles’s life as he pleases, like a wicked Room of Requirement keeping itself hidden no matter how much you wish for it to appear. Annoyed at himself for giving up on his clothes along with his reason so soon, instead of saying the only thing worth saying. For a brief moment he envisions a rather colourful header of the Daily Prophet reading, ‘As if there’s no tomorrow: Xavier chooses sex over saving the world’ (which Erik evidently catches a glimpse of, because he pauses in his rant to smirk). This is not the argument they’re supposed to have. This is petty and stale, way too far in the past, and anyhow it truly ceased to matter in the instant Erik showed his face at Hogwarts entrance gates. And Erik really needs to shut up, so Charles brackets his legs around Erik’s waist and pulls him down enough that he can kiss him.

There is nowhere near enough kissing Erik: Erik likes being in control, setting the rules of the game as if it’s a duel, always on-guard, always at a safe distance, and likes everything he can turn into a debate, so that, more often than not, even acts of intimacy are broken down into a routine of thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Charles pulls away for air reluctantly, a hand cupped to Erik’s cheek while the other steals away between their bodies, making Erik’s breath hitch. Erik brings up his free hand to mirror the gesture, stroking the thumb lazily over Charles’s cheekbone.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re keeping things from me on purpose,” Erik murmurs against his lips in a playful tone that means he’s perfectly aware that Charles is doing this on purpose.

Charles huffs, letting his hand slide down Erik’s neck and shoulder and descend in a wave across the breadth of his back. “It’s not _everyone_ , it’s the security staff. I’m the Head of the hosting school, of course there are matters you needn’t concern yourself about.”

Erik scowls. “Even Emma Frost knows about the Thestrals, and she’s in some fjord growing Boggarts!”

“Boggarts don’t grow,” Charles points out, unhelpfully. He instantly regrets it.

Erik pulls his fingers out abruptly, making him groan at the loss, and sits up astride him with a disconcerted look on his face.

“What is wrong with you?”

Charles lets both his hands drop on the bed to better prop himself up on his elbows, causing Erik to whimper in frustration as his hips roll in an unconscious attempt to get some measure of friction back.

Fine. If Erik wants to have this conversation, let him have it.

“Three years is what is wrong with me,” Charles spits out, and then, because this is utterly ridiculous and he can’t stand looking at Erik’s gobsmacked face any longer, he prods and pulls until Erik is again within kissing range. Thankfully, Erik’s fingers come back as well. “It’s been three bloody years and you never wrote back.” His sour tone is at odds with the readiness with which he claims his lover again.

“ _I’m busy._ ” Erik rewards him with a twist of fingers that reduces Charles’s vision to mist on the Thames. He may actually consider letting go of that tight Occlumency cloak now. “That, if I recall correctly, is what you said to me when I offered you a position as visiting professor in my school, three years ago.”

Charles nips at Erik’s bottom lip in retaliation. “I was. Running _my_ school.”

After a few minutes where Charles distinctly hears the cogs turning, Erik catches on.

“Wait, was that still about Paris?”

And we have a winner.

“Enchanting every bell in the city to play Slytherin House’s theme isn’t exactly the best way to show you’re happy to see me.” Breathing is starting to be an issue. “Do you have any idea how many Muggles I had to Obliviate?”

“I already said I’m sorry.”

“Sure you did. What you said was, and here I quote, ‘I’m sorry to see you can’t appreciate a token of my affection’.” By the end of the sentence his voice has faltered in four points at least, as heat keeps building up in his gut.

“See? It’s my feelings we should be talking about.” Judging from Erik’s ragged breaths, he’s not the only one.

“You poor thing.”

“You insufferable arse.” When even Erik resorts to insults, Charles knows better than to keep an argument going.

“Yes. C’mere.”

 

***

 

Many imprecations and a swirl of _Tergeo_ later find them curled up back to chest in Charles’s bed. Charles is almost dozing off at the quiet murmur of Erik’s voice, fingers running absently along Erik’s thigh as Erik summarises the Tournament’s agenda he has successfully coaxed out of Charles in his post-coital buoyancy.

“So you’re thinking of a treasure hunt in the Forbidden Forest, a Thestral ride and a Portkey… lottery?”

Trust Erik to say things in a way that makes them sound like absolute gibberish.

“We can’t always drown our students in the Black Lake, now, can we?”

Erik pinches him. “Speak for yourself, I wasn’t drowning.”

“The hell you weren’t!” Charles remembers Erik’s cyanotic face as it were yesterday. “I had to drag you Muggle-style from the water to get you out of the squid’s grasp. And I _had_ tried to warn you about it. If you had just listened to me, the exchange student from Beauxbatons would have come last in the task.”

“At least I got to talk to you,” Erik muses.

Charles pokes him in the ribs. “I had been trying to talk to you for a month.”

Erik’s mouth shapes into a crescent on Charles’s shoulder. “If by that you mean sneaking around in my mind trying to figure out if I was up to a tumble in the hay, well, yes.”

“Which you totally were, by the way, so why wait?”

“Well, you know, I couldn’t afford getting distracted. And then, who knew what you could conjure up to incapacitate me ahead of a task.” Erik sounds as if Charles has ever thought about Imperius Curses, or worse, love potions to prevent Erik from competing against him in the Tournament. There’s much more to that than what Erik said, they both know. It was there for everyone to see when Erik diverted the attention of the cockatrice on himself instead of taking advantage of Charles’s impasse to advance in the quest.

The silence stretching between them suggests Erik’s thoughts have followed a similar thread, so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise when Erik says, “Isn’t your Champion a bit too young to be allowed in the Tournament? She’s, like, fourteen.”

“Sixteen, actually. I’ve advised her against it, but she’s indeed the most brilliant student in our school. No wonder the Goblet chose her.” Besides, the fact that she can turn into an actual phoenix makes her the perfect candidate for one of the most dangerous competitions in the wizarding world, but Charles has no intention of spoiling Erik’s expectations so soon. Instead he turns around, facing Erik, and voices the doubt that has been niggling at the back of his mind since the arrival of the Durmstrang delegation.

“Actually, it’s surprising your son was allowed to participate.”

Charles registers the exact moment Erik freezes in place and his face shuts down in an impassive mask. One moment later he’s sitting up with his back to Charles and making a poor impression of gazing at their surroundings, eyes flitting over the endless amount of trinkets that clutter up the room but not quite stopping anywhere. His voice, when he speaks at last, has a bitter taste. “Do I have a son now?”

Charles barely holds back a snort. “Aspen wood and dragon heartstring core. All it needs is a tag advertising ‘a twin brother of the Triwizard victor’s of 1792’. And I haven’t seen someone casting jinxes that fast in ages.”

Erik rises from the bed with a grunt, and for moment Charles fears he’s going to pick up his clothes and leave, but Erik steps past his discarded robe and just starts pacing the room, hands coming up to rake through his hair in a hopeless attempt at regaining his composure.

The only thing Charles can do now is wait for him to come around. So he waits, and he’s puzzled when Erik stops in his tracks only a moment later, his attention caught by something in a corner of the room.

Charles sits up and follows his gaze, recognising the old chessboard laid out on a little round table. It’s an old set Charles and Erik made themselves during their long, tedious convalescence – courtesy of the third task – in the hospital wing, waiting for the Skele-Gro to act. They had stolen a cauldron and a pair of copper saucepans from the kitchens and spent hours perfecting it in every aspect. Erik, whose offensive spells were second-best only to metal witchcraft, shaped the pieces, while Charles gifted their features with sparks of sentience.

“You kept this piece of junk?” Erik’s words, even though clearly meant to be dismissive, betray a certain degree of fondness.

“There’s nothing quite like it,” Charles explains, looking over at copper king tapping its sceptre onto its pedestal in barely repressed fury at Erik’s comment, as a pewter bishop smiles serenely on the other side of the board. “And I guess if I _did_ want to get rid of it, it would find a way to crawl back in here through the window or something.”

“I did imbue it with Anti-Scattering and Anti-Misplacing charms.”

Erik picks up a copper knight and hurls it at the wall to his left. Ms. Ignatia Wildsmith deserts her frame in horror with a leap in the fireplace as the chess piece flies towards her with a piercing whinny and then splatters as if liquefied on the painting surface, barely an inch away from where her head was. Just as rapidly, the pooling metal shapes itself back into a knight and dashes in the opposite direction, ending his flight – be it due to Owner-Binding spells or Seeker reflexes – right in Erik’s outstretched hand.

Erik puts the piece back on the board and turns around, looking at him with eyes that never quite reach Charles’s.

“I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”

This is his cue to get on his feet and take a step forward. Charles recognises it in the slump of Erik’s shoulders, in his fists flexing as if he’s bracing himself against an invisible opponent (Charles likes the thought of never being that opponent, not really, even though the number of times they’ve had at it like drunk Muggles are too many to be counted on fingers), in the way he tries to sneer his pain away from his face.

He takes Erik’s hands, coaxing him into loosening his fists and lacing their fingers together.

“What happened?” Charles tries to keep his voice soft, undemanding, but after all he _is_ curious. He wonders why someone who has a way to tie Erik Lehnsherr to themselves wouldn’t make use of that. Charles for one has never quite figured out what it is that makes Erik want to stay in one place. Maybe no one has yet.

Erik shrugs his hands off and laughs, a hoarse, half-choked sound that rings like long overstepped boundaries. “Can’t you just see for yourself?”

“I’m asking you. If you don’t want to tell me, I won’t pry.”

Erik huffs out a breath and sinks back down onto the bed, darting a glance his way before he speaks to the curled hands in his lap.

“We thought we had something. Magda… I believed I could give her what she needed, but in the end… it just didn’t work. When she found out she was pregnant we had already fallen apart. I didn’t know about Pietro and Wanda, his twin, until I walked into their classroom for my first lesson in Advanced Defence. I’m not their father but in blood, and you know how little that matters in the end.”

Charles’s family history, written by ties based on blood and convenience since he can tell, is a famous one. Sometimes he suspects that’s what drew Erik to him in the first place. Charles sits down next to him on the bed.

“Do they know?”

“If they know, they’ve never acted upon it.”

Charles kisses his cheek, then tilts Erik’s head down so that he can let his own lips drift to his temple. “I know,” he whispers on Erik’s skin, reaching with an arm around him for a loose embrace, should Erik decide to let himself out of it, “that I have no right and that what I’m about to say will come out as utterly insensitive...”

Erik’s shoulders shake just so as he bites back a bitter laugh. His cheek feels warm and damp under Charles’s fingers.

Charles forces himself to continue. “You can’t expect to be missed if you were never there.”

Erik makes no move to wriggle himself free. For a couple of minutes he remains completely still in Charles’s arms, save for the occasional hitch and shudder in his breathing. For a moment Charles fears he’s said too much, fed Erik’s bleeding heart with too much pain for him to hear what comes next, but he soldiers on lest the silence drowns them both.

“Be there for them. Make yourself be missed.”

He leans back to level his gaze with Erik’s. “They will love you. But you need to give them a chance to do that.”

Erik closes his eyes and buries his face in the crook of Charles’s neck without a word.

Charles holds on.

 

***

 

“It’s a curious feeling.” Erik’s eyes are still puffy but his voice is steady as he lets his hand run across Charles’s back, fingertips gently tracing his spine. “You and me here again, twenty years later, this time as the Heads of the Tournament. Honestly, I didn’t expect you’d try and revive it, after what happened in our own.”

The notorious Triwizard of 1792, when the cockatrice of the third task went inexplicably on a rampage and was caged again only by Headmaster Schmidt after even the conjoined endeavours of the Heads of Hogwarts and Beauxbatons had failed, is the reason the Tournament was cancelled in the first place. The curious discovery of a lump of steel in the cockatrice’s bowels might or it might not have contributed to that development.

“Maybe I was just trying to get your attention.”

The shift in mood is subtle but doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You have it.” Erik kisses his forehead near the hairline, where Charles knows dark curls have recently been giving way to silver. “Something’s bothering you, old friend, and it’s certainly not Paris bells.”

“If only I knew what it is.” Charles sighs, taking comfort in Erik’s soothing fingers carding through the hair at the back of his head. “I’m afraid we have somehow tickled the sleeping dragon and it’s only a matter of time before it raises its head against us.”

Erik’s hands tense just slightly. “What is it? Has Irene had another one of his visions?”

“Irene’s been incredibly closed off these days. No, it’s Jean I’m worried about…”

“Jean… as in Jean Grey, your Champion? She’s a Seer too?”

The way Erik tries to mask his annoyance behind a – rather thin, actually – veil of amazement is quite endearing.

“It may be too early to tell for sure, but she certainly appears to be gifted. She came to me on a number of occasions to talk about the nightmares haunting her sleep, and there hasn’t yet been a time they didn’t come true.”

“It’s possible she’s only been influencing herself.” Erik volunteers in a calm, sceptical tone that belies decades of dealing with that kind of experience first-hand. “The mind is prone to play tricks on itself.”

“I had thought about that too, until she told me exactly how I would get injured on a trip I was going on alone and no one was supposed to know about.”

“Have you been giving her Legilimency lessons, perhaps called her into your office where something could have hinted at your plans?”

Charles can’t help nibbling at his bottom lip. He’s been reading Jean as far as he’s been able without her noticing and thoroughly revisited every recent encounter they’ve had using Cerebro. Nothing has popped up. “No, I’m sure of that.”

“Headmaster Xavier, reading the minds of his students…” Erik teases him, unhelpfully.

“I wouldn’t have done that if I could have helped it, Erik. But Jean… she’s seen terrible things. The earth gaping, cities razed to the ground, death. And I don’t have a clue about how or when they’ll come upon us, but they will and we have to be ready.”

“I fail to see how a Triwizard should help accomp…” Erik trails off, eyes widening in realisation. “You brought them all here to protect them. It’s not the Tournament’s safety measures you’ve been talking about with the others, isn’t it? You’re setting up advanced defences around the school.”

“That’s only if something happens during the school year, which I very much hope is not the case, though it’s true that Hogwarts’s defences make it the safest place for students from all over the continent. But I thought about the Tournament when I realised how divided the wizarding world is right now. If we want a chance at survival, we need to be united.”

Erik snorts. “Which is exactly what a Tournament achieves.”

“As the Bard said, ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’.”

Erik’s lips curl in a wistful smile. He’s the one who inadvertently converted Charles to Muggle literature, much to his own chagrin. To say that Erik has a complicated relationship with his ancestry would be an understatement.

“What if having us all here makes us easier to annihilate?”

“That’s a possibility, yes.”

“Not to mention highly dangerous creatures are going to be released that may serve the purposes of lesser sorcerers.”

“That’s why _we_ are arranging the Tournament this time instead of Klaus Schmidt.”

“This is a terrible plan, Charles.”

“I’m glad to see you too.” Charles sighs. “Do you know how many teachers and students from Durmstrang or Beauxbatons I could name before I decided to send the owls with the invitations? One.”

“Piotr Nikolaievitch?” The half-giant surely has a presence that can’t be overlooked, but Charles only ever heard tales of him – mostly referring to his person by a picturesque sobriquet – before meeting him earlier today.

“You.” He punctuates his word by jabbing a finger into Erik’s chest. “I meant it, before, when I said I was trying to get your attention, Erik. This isn’t only about our students growing to know one another, forging ties for the times to come…” Charles inhales sharply. “You have powers that greatly surpass mine…” Erik opens his mouth to interrupt him, but Charles stops him with a finger on his lips. “That’s why I need us to stand together in this.”

“You can count on me, always. You know that.” Erik’s words come tumbling out of his mouth like clear water in a mountain stream. He doesn’t have to think about them, string them carefully one after the other to find a suitable combination. They’re already there, they’ve always been there, and Charles’s heart aches at the words he ought to say next.

“I know, but that’s not enough. Everyone will rely on you, Erik. I know your views and mine will never align, but if… when the time comes… I’ll need you not to make any differences.”

A frown carves its way deep into Erik’s forehead. “It’s always about the Muggles with you, isn’t it?” He sounds scorned, but the rough edge Charles has been bracing himself for just isn’t there. “I’m not talking about burning them on pyres, Charles. I just… it seems like the only logical decision in dire times to put our blood before any—”

“They are our blood, Erik. They’re our people too. You of all people should know that.”

“They don’t even know about us! And you were an A in History so you should know the lengths our ancestors went to ensure they’d never know about us again.”

“I’m not talking about burning pyres either. I’m talking about Muggle-borns’ families – families like yours, or Alex’s, or Kitty’s. I’m talking about neighbours, friends, lovers and strangers we may have met or not walking down the road. Their lives are worth just like yours or mine.” And then, as the last card up his sleeve, Charles adds, “I trust you to remember that even Bowman Wright’s father…”

“… was a Muggle. I know, I know.”

Erik sighs, lips pursing in a tell-tale fashion meaning he is just shy of caving in. “I would tear this world apart and mould it back anew if you only spoke the words, Charles Francis Xavier.” The fact that it isn’t an empty threat on Erik’s part only makes this admission worthier in Charles’s eyes. “I will save every last of your Muggles if that’s what you want. Just…”

“Yes?” Charles is balancing his feet on a thin, thin thread, the thrill making him light-headed.

“Be safe. I’m no good at prioritising if your life is on the line.”

He lets a smile spread on his lips. “I’ll be careful.”

“That’s not what I said,” Erik protests.

“That’s all I can promise without being untruthful.”

Erik shrugs his head, resigned. “Then I’ll take it. But,” he warns in a low, thick voice. “I want to be in the clear. Everything you know, you tell me. Are we agreed?”

Charles puts a hand on his chest. “On my honour.”

Erik chuckles. “Your honour means nothing to me, you resentful cheat. Swear it on your hair.”

“You would never—”

Erik raises one eyebrow, challenging him.

“Alright, on my hair.” Erik looks satisfied at last. “Speaking of, we have an early morning tomorrow. How do you feel about freshening up a bit before sleep?”

“In the lake?”

“In the Prefect’s bathroom,” Charles says, very seriously. Best not to let Erik know his private bathroom is at least twice the size of that. “For old times’ sake.”

“You just want to scar some poor boy for life,” Erik makes a show of sighing to cover up his interest. “Again.”

Admittedly, Hank still hasn’t let him live that one down.

_You’re not even a Head Boy!_ Charles remembers a fifteen-year-old Henry McCoy wailing miserably, hands flailing to cover his eyes enough that he could not see the two of them but still manage to get the hell out of the room as fast as humanly possible.

_But Erik is a Head Boy in Durmstrang. Aren’t you, Erik?_ Charles smiled innocently, as if Erik hadn’t been working out the dynamics of an underwater blowjob until one minute earlier (bless Phyllida Spore and the properties of gillyweed).

Hank’s ears and neck coloured beautifully, and he all but fled the bathroom, his young, brilliant mind still processing the images burnt on his retinas (and cataloguing them for future reference, though Hank would never admit to that much).

“Say what you will, but Alex still sends me fruit baskets on their anniversary.”

A sly smile makes its way across Erik’s face. “Want to be another closet case’s epiphany?”

They are more or less put together and at the door in a matter of seconds, kissing and tickling each other in the ribs as they go, only to swing the door open on a wide-eyed Jean Grey.

“Headmaster, I…” she stutters, rapidly taking in Erik’s hands fisted in Charles’s robe, their red cheeks (in addition to Charles’s guilty frown, while Erik looks as calm and collected as he’s only just been interrupted by a question during his morning lecture instead of while canoodling with the headmaster of a rival school) and probably something askew in their clothing, before evidently going for a hasty retreat. “I am so sorry. I will come back tomorrow.”

Her panic-filled eyes – far too upset to be due to awkwardness – set Charles in motion. “Jean, dear,” he steps out of Erik’s embrace to stop her with a hand on her arm. “It’s all right, you can tell me. Is it another dream?”

Jean glances warily in Erik’s direction.

“I trust him.” Charles darts a look over his shoulder. Erik nods solemnly, a hint of pride in the curl of his lips when he returns Charles’s gaze. “I keep no secrets from Headmaster Lehnsherr.”

His reassurance does nothing to ban panic from Jean’s face.

“He was in my dream,” she breathes, green eyes locking onto Erik above Charles’s shoulder. “Tearing the world apart.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [Tumblr](http://bocje-ce-ustu.tumblr.com). Come say hi!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Genesis (Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12051669) by [JackyJango](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyJango/pseuds/JackyJango)




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